by Charles Todd
Mrs. Ashton’s gaze met that of her son, but she said with a smile, “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Clara.”
Half an hour later, when I went to look for a book to read, I found Mark in his father’s study, sitting at the desk, staring into space. I started to withdraw, but he looked up and said, “Come in. I don’t think I can stand my own company much longer.”
I shut the door behind me and went to the hearth, where Nan was stretched out, drowsing as dogs do. She lifted her head, and I scratched behind her silky ears. Without looking at Mark, I asked, “Is there anything you and the solicitor failed to tell your mother?”
“Only that finding jurors who haven’t heard about the explosion and fire will be difficult. God knows what opinions they may have already formed. It’s been two years, but Canterbury felt the force of the explosion. As I think I told you, everyone thought the Germans were shelling Kent. People don’t forget a fright like that. It wouldn’t be surprising if they’ve already made up their minds.”
“Yes, I can understand that.”
He roused himself. “But you shouldn’t be dragged into this affair. You’ve had only a few days of leave,” he went on with a smile, “and we’ve hardly done more than talk about our troubles. I’m so sorry, Bess.”
“I don’t see why you should apologize to me. You couldn’t have foreseen your father’s arrest, and certainly not the fire. Besides, I’d have spent much of my leave in a railway station waiting for a train if it weren’t for you and your family. Instead, I’ve been here and much more comfortable. It was so good to meet your mother again. And to find you fully recovered.”
He took a deep breath. “I should have offered to walk into the village with you, or into the abbey grounds, but remembering the eggs, I didn’t think it was advisable just now.”
“I’ve walked on my own into the village,” I reminded him. “There are very lovely old houses here in Cranbourne. I enjoyed them.”
“You probably haven’t seen the Tudor Almshouse. And there’s another house similar to the Hall on the far side of the ruins. It was the Abbot’s Lodging. It’s not as old as the Hall; one of the later abbots rebuilt it after a fire, enlarging it in the process. It’s closed now. The Carstairs have lived in London since the start of the war.” Smiling ruefully, he said, “We seem to run to fires out here in Cranbourne, don’t we?”
“You do. I didn’t intend to disturb you—I was looking for something to read. Your mother isn’t in her sitting room.”
“You didn’t disturb me. And Mother is very likely in her garden. It’s where she retreats when she’s worried. But don’t go just yet.” He fidgeted with the pen lying on the blotter in front of him, and then said, “I shall have to face the Medical Board soon, Bess. And I’ve known for the past fortnight that my hearing has been steadily improving. There are some levels of sound that still seem to be in the far distance, but I want to get back to my men. Every day away from them I worry about where they are, what’s happening to them, who has been wounded, who has been killed. Captain Hunt has written to me, and Lieutenant Wilmont as well.” He grinned. “For God’s sake, even Sergeant Edgar has written. I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw the letter. Hunt is a new man—he was brought in after I’d been sent home. I only know him by reputation. Wilmont is steady enough, but Sergeant Edgar runs the show. He’s thirty-five now and survived four years of the worst of it. Granddad, his men call him. With affection, I might add, and only behind his back. At any rate, that’s where I need to be. Ought to be. But how in God’s name can I go back, with half my mind here? Leaving Mother to deal with the lawyers? Leaving my father sitting in a jail cell with, let’s be honest, an uncertain future? They won’t even call me back to testify. I wasn’t here when the mill went up, and so there’s nothing I can add to general knowledge.”
“Your mother is quite capable of taking on the police and anyone else,” I reminded him. “But still, it will be hard on her.” And hard on Mark too, in an entirely different way. I knew all too well that men whose attention was divided by worry about something at home—an unfaithful wife, a sick child or parent, a brother just enlisting, even money woes, the list was infinite—were in greater danger of being killed. They lost that sharp edge of attention, intuition, and skill at reading events that gave them a better chance of surviving. A letter on the eve of an attack, even an instant’s distraction could make the difference between life and death.
Mark knew that as well as I did. Firsthand, in fact, while my experience came from talking to the wounded. And listening to the Colonel Sahib and Simon go over an action. What went right, what went wrong, how it might have turned out differently. For better or worse.
I think what really troubled Mark was the nearness of the war’s end—if all the rumors could be believed. He wanted to be there at the finish, to keep as many of his men alive as possible to see it through. At the same time he needed to be here for his mother—if his father was convicted and condemned. And that last he didn’t want to put into actual thought, much less words.
I said, “Ask for compassionate leave, Mark. They won’t deny it, surely.”
“I’ve been away too long. It’s not right, not fair to my men.”
“It won’t help your men or your mother if you’re killed,” I told him bluntly. “Ask for it. As soon as you know where matters stand for your father, you can go back to France.”
He put his head in his hands for a moment, then looked at me. “I try to keep up her spirits. But I think she knows I can’t abandon her.”
I wanted to tell him that it appeared that the war was all but over. That his presence—or his absence—wouldn’t change the outcome. But that wouldn’t matter to him. It wasn’t what drove men like Mark Ashton. Or the Colonel Sahib or Simon or any of those I knew who wore the King’s uniform.
“Write the letter tomorrow,” I said. “The sooner the better. It won’t do to put it off. If by any stretch of the imagination you’re refused, then you can face the alternative with a clearer mind. You’ll know you’ve done your very best for everyone, your men, your family. It’s not going to be easy for your father, either. Sitting there, knowing he must await events when he’d much rather shape them, knowing you’re in France, that your mother is alone. For his sake, and hers, at least ask.”
I didn’t tell him that it might be a sign of which way the wind blew, depending on whether or not the request for leave was granted. But I was beginning to think it was possible that whoever was behind this torment of the Ashton family might want Mark well out of the way.
“How did you come to be so wise?” he asked.
I laughed. “It’s common sense, Mark, not wisdom. Only you’re too close to the matter to see it as clearly.”
I went to find Mrs. Ashton, and she was indeed in her garden, busily deadheading the blooms, dropping them into the basket at her feet, then picking it up by its long handle to move closer to her next task. It was nearly dusk, but she appeared not to notice. Looking up as I came toward her, she said, “Ah, Bess. I’ve neglected these rather badly, haven’t I?”
“They don’t seem to mind. The plants are still blooming quite enthusiastically.”
“They’re protected here, of course. Even in late winter I can find the earliest bulbs and flowers starting to open. The sun warms the brick and the brick warms the buds. The monks built well.” And then she straightened her back and looked up at the fading colors in the western sky. “But I can’t protect my husband or my son. Sad, isn’t it?”
“None of us can,” I told her. “Who was it said it best? Francis Bacon? All of us give hostages to fortune. It’s just that right now, yours are very pressing.”
“True.” She bent to her work again. “I can’t ask Mark to stay. He’s been fretting to return to France almost since the day he arrived. It’s where he belongs, where his heart is, with the men who serve under him. It�
��s a terribly close bond. I’ve learned that.”
We wandered toward the bottom of the garden, where the ponds were dark, secretive now. She set her basket at her feet and looked down the greensward toward the house. The upper windows were reflecting the last of the light.
“Mark is torn,” I said gently. “If he goes, you must assure him that all will be well here.”
“I can do that,” she said, still not looking at me. “I was in France, Bess. I read letters to the wounded and the dying.”
I thought perhaps she was frightened for herself and her husband and unwilling to admit it. Loneliness and fear . . .
“Clara will stay with you, I’m sure.”
“Yes, she’s a dear.” But it was not said with conviction. And then she turned to me. “If only Ellie had lived. I was so counting on her as my daughter-in-law. I think I’ve mourned her death nearly as deeply as Mark has.”
“He talked about her in France. I remember holding his hand one night—oh, it must have been well after two o’clock—as he told me how happy he was going to be.”
“She had other suitors, of course,” Mrs. Ashton went on. “But she and Mark had been friends since they were ten and twelve. And that grew into love. I was the one who had to tell him that she’d died only hours before he got here. The look on his face was beyond bearing.” She took a deep breath. “And so you see, Bess, if Mark chooses to go back to France, I’ll be all right. I’ve faced harder tasks than that.”
I wasn’t sure whether she was trying to convince me or herself.
As we slowly walked back toward the house, I said diffidently, “I can’t help but wonder how this began—how a village could be turned against one man in only a matter of months. From what Mark has told me, for a year or more everyone had accepted the fact that the explosion and fire had been an appalling accident. No one’s fault. What could have changed their minds? Who could have started such rumors?”
I had hoped that she would confide in me, that it might help her to unburden herself.
It was almost too dark now to read her face, although I tried.
“I don’t know,” she said, a deep sorrow in her voice. “I wish to God I did.”
In the silence that followed, we walked together back into the house. Who could she choose over her husband and her son? Who would she protect at their expense?
Or was what I’d overheard in the darkness outside the sitting room window an act of sheer bravado, an attempt to stop her family’s persecutor by making him or her believe that she knew who it was and would take her own vengeance?
I wanted to believe that it had been an act. A bluff.
Whether that was the truth or not was a very different matter.
I wondered again if she had mentioned a name to her husband—and he’d refused to believe it, making her doubt her own conclusions.
At dinner Mark told me that he’d drive me into Canterbury in the morning, in time for my train. “I have a meeting with Groves tomorrow, and I expect Lucius Worley will be there as well. They’ll have spoken to my father.”
I saw the longing on Mrs. Ashton’s face. She would have given much to be allowed to see her husband. Not even Mark had been allowed to speak to him. I thought it was cruel of Inspector Brothers, even if Philip Ashton was charged with multiple counts of murder.
Thanking Mark, I added, “I’m so sorry to have come at such a sad time, but I can’t regret staying. Please, if there’s anything more I can do, you have only to let me know.”
When we went up to bed shortly before ten o’clock, Mark stopped me on the stairs. I looked up at him as he said, “I told you you’d be good for my mother. And you have been, more than you perhaps realize.”
I hoped he was right. Mrs. Ashton had spoken to me as she would have talked to Ellie, and in such a distressing time as this, it had been a way to cope with the weight of worry she carried.
For some reason I couldn’t sleep. Part of that was concern for the Ashtons, and part of it was missing my own family. I had never got to London to see or even speak to them.
I sat by the window for an hour or so, looking out into the night. For a time I watched bats dipping and swooping over the drive, for it was still warm enough for them to be out and about. They were fast and graceful, with that little flutter of the wings as they adjusted their flight patterns.
I was still watching when I realized that someone was coming up the drive. A man, walking quietly on the grassy verge, taking his time. I thought at first it was Mark, unable to sleep too, but this man didn’t walk like Mark. Mark had a slight limp, and this one was more pronounced.
Whoever he was, he stopped some twenty feet from the front door, as if trying to make up his mind about something. The chair had been removed to the tip; it couldn’t have been what he was looking for. Instead I thought he was studying the front door of the house, perhaps even trying to see if a light shone from any of the windows.
I tensed, wondering if this might be the person who had thrown the stone through the sitting room window. If he took another step toward the house or raised an arm, I would find Mark’s room and wake him up at once.
But he didn’t. He simply stood there in the dark. And then as his gaze swept the house again, he paused, suddenly alert, and I wondered if he could see me by the window, looking down at him. My room was dark, and I was wearing my dark dressing gown. I didn’t think it was possible.
And yet it felt as if our eyes had locked, and I realized with a shock that this must be the man I’d seen by the river, working on his boat.
What had brought him to Abbey Hall? In the middle of the night?
Almost in the same moment he made an abrupt, involuntary movement, then lowered his head before turning and walking briskly back the way he’d come.
Had he been set on some mischief here? Or had he simply come out of curiosity, or for some other reason I couldn’t understand?
I waited another half an hour, but he didn’t come back.
I was wary of mentioning what I’d seen to Mark. And so I was very glad to find Mrs. Ashton downstairs before anyone else. She was sitting at the table, a cup of tea in front of her, but she was staring into space, her mind anywhere but here. With her husband in his cell? I thought it likely.
She stirred as I came in, picking up her cup as if she hadn’t been gathering wool.
“Good morning, my dear. I expect you’ll have good sailing weather back to France. The barometer in the study is pointing steadily at Fair.”
“Good news,” I agreed lightly, pouring my own cup of tea, adding honey and—such a luxury—fresh milk. Taking my place at the table, I added, “Who is the man who works on boats down by the Cran?”
Surprised, she frowned for a moment. “How did you come to meet Alex Craig?”
“He happened to be there when I saw the warehouses.”
She nodded. “And Mark didn’t think it necessary to introduce you.” Before I could tell her he hadn’t been with me, she took a deep breath. “Alex was in love with Eloise, you know. Quite madly. But she chose Mark, and there was an end to it. He came here when she was so very ill, half out of his mind with grief. And I let him see her. I couldn’t turn him away. But I never told Mark that. I didn’t think it was—he wasn’t in time, you know. Mark. And it seemed cruel to say anything.”
“I didn’t know she was here when she died.”
“It was rather terrible, how it happened. We’d had a lovely weekend. Her parents came over from Chilham with Eloise, and we had dinner here on Friday evening. And then on Saturday we went into Canterbury—there was a memorial service for the son of a family we all knew very well. Afterward we decided to walk a bit, down toward houses where the weavers once lived. It was such a beautiful spring day, and the service had been rather sad. I think we all felt better for that walk. We came back to the Hall to dine, rathe
r than trust to what a restaurant might have on offer, and then we sat on the terrace for a time, to watch the sun set. The next morning, as Eloise and her parents were preparing to leave, she fainted as she came down the stairs. She’d seemed very much herself at breakfast, although she’d mentioned a slight headache. We sent at once for Dr. Mason in Canterbury, and he told us she must have caught a spring chill. Forty-eight hours later, she was fighting for her life. Her parents stayed with her to the very end.”
“In France I saw the influenza kill just as quickly. There was nothing anyone could do.”
“And yet I felt as if I’d failed my son. I’d sent for Mark, he managed to get leave almost at once, but of course it was too late. If I’d lost my own daughter, I don’t think I could have grieved any more deeply.”
“Was she an only child?”
“Yes. Her parents went to London not very long after the funeral. They couldn’t bear to rattle around in that big empty house in Chilham. It was too painful. We correspond, Eloise’s mother and I. But I think we both find it very hard. What is there to say but what might have been?”
“And Alex Craig?”
“He wasn’t her only suitor—”
She broke off, hearing someone at the door. Clara came in, wishing us both a good morning, and then Mark followed a minute or so later.
There wasn’t a chance to explain why I’d asked Mrs. Ashton about Alex Craig.
If he’d loved Eloise so deeply, and had been allowed to say good-bye to her, I couldn’t imagine that he wished the Ashtons ill. He was probably drawn to the house where Eloise had died, rather than to a stone in a churchyard. He hadn’t seemed too fond of Mark, his rival, but that was more or less expected. And so I told myself I could put him out of my mind.
Two hours later, carrying my kit, Mark walked with me through the crowded waiting room at the railway station and inquired about my train. This time to Dover. It was expected to arrive within the hour, we were told.
